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How to Properly Change Your WordPress Username (Step by Step)

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Do you want to change the username you use when logging in to your WordPress website?

It’s not possible to change your username in WordPress using the same method as changing your full name or password. That said, there are a few ways to get around it.

In this article, we will show you three different methods to change WordPress usernames, step by step.

How to Properly Change Your WordPress Username (Step by Step)

Changing Your WordPress Username

While it is easy to change your full name from your user profile in WordPress, you’ll see a message that usernames can’t be changed.

You Cannot Change Your Username from Your WordPress User Profile

This can be frustrating and confusing to beginner WordPress users. The good news is that there are several workarounds to change your WordPress admin username and other usernames.

This article will show you three ways to change your username on your WordPress website. You can use the links below to jump to the method you wish to use:

Method 1: Create a New User and Delete the Old One

The easiest way to change your WordPress username is by creating a new user with your desired username and with the administrator user role.

The only catch is that you will need to use a different email address than the one used by your current account.

Note: If you are using Gmail, then you can insert a plus sign (+) with additional letters after your username.

For example, if your email address is myname@gmail.com, then you can use the email address myname+wordpress@gmail.com. It will still go to the same email inbox, but WordPress will consider it a separate email address.

Add a New WordPress User

After creating the new account, you need to log out of your WordPress account and then log in with the new user account you just created.

Next, head over to the Users » All Users page in your WordPress admin area and then click the ‘Delete’ link under your old username to remove it.

Delete Your Old Username from the Users Page

When you delete the old username, WordPress will ask what you want to do with any content created by that user.

Make sure that you click the ‘Attribute all content to’ option and then select the new user you just created.

Assign Any Posts Belonging to the Old Username to the New Username

After that, you should click the ‘Confirm Deletion’ button to delete the old user account.

Congratulations, you have now successfully changed your WordPress username. If you want to use the same email address as before, then you can now change the email address of the new user.

Method 2: Change Username by Using a Plugin

Another simple way to change your WordPress username is by using a plugin. If you are worried about using too many plugins, then let us assure you that you can safely delete the plugin once you have changed your WordPress username.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Easy Username Updater plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, simply go to the Users » Username Updater page and then click the ‘update’ link next to the username you want to change.

Username Updater List of Users

Now, you simply enter the new username and then click the ‘Update Username’ button.

If you’d like to notify the user about the change, then make sure you check the ‘Send User Notification’ box first.

Username Updater Update Username Screen

That’s all! Now, you can remove the username changer plugin from your site.

Method 3: Change Your WordPress Username Using phpMyAdmin

This method is a little bit complicated as it requires that you make direct changes to your WordPress database.

We recommend that users avoid doing this if possible since it’s easy to make a mistake and cause errors on your WordPress site.

However, in some cases, you may not have an option, such as when you forget your WordPress username and email address and get locked out of your admin account.

First, you will need to log in to your web hosting dashboard to locate the phpMyAdmin menu.

We are using Bluehost in this example. Your dashboard may look different if you are using a different host that doesn’t use cPanel, but the phpMyAdmin option should still be available.

Once you’re inside the Bluehost dashboard, go ahead and navigate to the ‘Websites’ tab. Then, select a website and click the ‘Settings’ button.

Bluehost site settings

Now, scroll down to the Quick Links section.

After that, simply click ‘phpMyAdmin.’

Navigating to the phpMyAdmin in Bluehost

This will launch phpMyAdmin in a new browser tab.

You will need to select your WordPress database if it is not already selected.

Choose Your WordPress Database in phpMyAdmin

You will now see your WordPress database tables. By default, WordPress database tables use wp_ as a prefix before each table’s name. It is possible that you may have changed the database prefix to something else.

You need to click on the wp_users table on the left-hand side. Then, you should click ‘Edit’ next to the username that you wish to change.

Edit the Desired Username in the wp_users Table

Now, you will be able to type the new username you wish to use into the user_login field.

When you are done, you’ll need to click the ‘Go’ button at the bottom of the screen to save the new username.

Enter a New Username in the user_login Field

That’s all! Now, you should be able to log in to your dashboard with your new username.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to properly change your WordPress username. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to choose the best WordPress hosting or check out our complete guide to WordPress SEO.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

109 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. Val says

    I used the first method and I am unable to delete the other user. Has anyone run into this issue? Now that I have another user with the username I actually want I am concerned that I can’t move on to method 2 or 3 because the username is already in use.

  3. Sarah Sullivan says

    Hi, My site is still under construction, when I was setting it up I followed the steps I had printed out instead of listening to the audio too. I only realised afterwards that I shouldn’t have used my real email address as the username as this will be visible once I start posting. Which method above would you recommend I follow to make the necessary change as I haven’t yet got any content to worry about losing?
    The other thing I keep getting really confused about is when I am asked for my email address do they mean my real one or the one that is part of website that I would like to handle?

    Thanks
    Sarah

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Sarah you can add as many users account to your WordPress site as you want. Simply go to the Users page in admin area and then click on add new. You can add users with different roles like administrator (site owner), editor, author, etc. If you are the only one using your site, then a user with administrator role is all you need. After you have created a user name that you like, feel free to delete the old one that you do not wish to use anymore.

      The email address they ask will be used to send you notification emails. It has to be any existing email address that you already use.

      WordPress itself is not an email client and it will not create an email address as part of your website. If you want to have a branded email address with your own domain name like sarah@example.com, then see our guide on how to setup a professional email address with Google Apps and Gmail

      Admin

  4. Niaz Khan says

    Thank you, admin, after reading your blog I have successfully changed the usernames of my blog bestcmsplugins.com ,

    You are doing a great job by helping others

  5. Julio Falconi says

    I did it and when i went on my new account it doesn’t show users tab or any other tabs

  6. Vijay says

    Thank you so much for this article. I took the phpMyAdmin route and it worked… But, before it started working it did this weird thing where if I entered the url of the user’s profile it took me to the home page.

    But then in the end it worked. Probably because I saved the profile from wp-admin after having changed the user_login and the user_nicename values from phpMyAdmin?

  7. madivad says

    Too many places to reply so I’ll create a new comment.

    I’m one of those people that don’t like to just add another plugin (even if I can remove it afterwards) and so even after reading about the create new user/delete user/migrate posts method, I liked the phpmyadmin method.

    But it does cripple multisite installs and you really should update the main post about that.

    For anyone who does do it the database way, you have to go into your sitemeta table and update the superadmin user with the new username and character count in the S:flag.

    Otherwise, the create/delete/migrate method might actually be a better option :)

    • Cassy says

      Here is the way I did it – very quick and easy, took me less than 5 minutes to do:
      1. Go to users
      2. Click on the user name you want to change
      3. Above the “Update Profile” button, there will be text that reads “Were you looking for your API Key and other Personal Settings”. The ‘API Key and other Personal Settings’ text will be highlighted (as it is a link).
      4. Click on this highlighted text.
      5. Scrolls down the page to the heading “Account Details”
      6. Just under “Account Details” will be ‘User Name’
      7. You will see next to your user name there will be the word ‘Change’ in brackets, also in highlighted text (indicating it is a link).
      8. Click on this text to change your user name.
      9. Don’t forget to save
      10. You can change all other linked settings from here, such as BLOG NAME, PRIMARY BLOG, etc,

  8. Traci says

    Hello,

    Thanks for the article! Out of curiosity, would a change of my WP login username prompt a DISCONNECT to wordpress.com jetpack stats and tools?

    I’m asking b/c today, I changed it (due to tireless notifications of site lockout attempts from….who knows?), and now my jetpack stats are all screwy and wordpress.com no longer recognizes my website. I’m getting this error message:

    unknown_token: It looks like your Jetpack connection is broken. Try disconnecting from WordPress.com then reconnecting.

    But no further instructions on what to do. Love to know your thoughts.

    Thanks! LOVE your all of your content!

  9. Chris says

    A word to the wise, from someone who wasn’t. Using that plugin can be fatal to a multisite setup. Multisite does not allow the user name of the superadmin to be changed. And there is no warning about this on the plugin site. But because the plugin just twiddles with the name fields of the database it gaily ignores this. So if you use it, be prepared to lose all access to the network. This might not happen if the name you change it to happens to have the same number of characters as the name you are changing from. I am not about to prove this point though, once bitten and all that. The remedy is then only direct editing of the database to restore precisely, and I do mean precisely including cap and lower case usage, what was there before.

    • Miha says

      Hi,

      i successfully changed username on the multisite installation.

      I have changed username directly in sql database.

      First of all backup your db.

      You have to change username in tables:
      _users in fields: user_login and user_nicename
      _usermetadata field nickname and
      _sitemeta field site_admins

      in the field site_admins be careful to change the name admin and number of letters before admin in variable s:5
      admin username has 5 letters, change it to number of letter in your new name

      Delete cookies in browser, login again to your WP admin and you have network access with your new username

  10. Bob The Builder says

    Here is something odd that I’ve noticed today.

    I did not like it that my (admin) username was visible in the author URL. So I decided to create a new user with author role and since I’ve made this new user the author URLs are the same as the screennames.

    So now I can use my admin account again since the screenname is visible in the URLs and not my actual username.

    Any explanation for this?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      WordPress uses the username in the Author URLs. If the admin user still has posts then their author URL will still appear on those posts. You can assign those posts to new author account you created and set a redirect for the admin url.

      Admin

  11. Paul Okeke says

    Everything about WPbeginner.com is awesome. This article and all I have come across from the same source worked for me. Just want to say a big thanks to wpbeginner.com editorial saff. Cheers!

  12. Adriana says

    Would the process “Create a New User and Delete The Old One” work properly from network admin area on a multisite installation?

  13. MattFromGA says

    This change may or may not be a big problem for a given wordpress site based on the plugins and theme it is using. What if there is a plugin that uses an external system that associates data with username? The simple change outlined here would fail to update that username in the external system and the association between the user and that external data would be broken with this change. What about forum posts in bbpress where a user mentions another user by username?

    I guess a basic wordpress blog install wouldn’t have too many problems with this, but beyond that you better have awareness of the other plugins and theme dependencies on username. If none, this simple change could be fine.

    • Rose says

      Yes And we’ve seen this week where this all can lead to. Patching up plugins, fixing holes, hoping the theme has no holes, then after seeing the notorious scammers all have the name, changing username etc. But luckily we can change the name. There’s no other option when all is leaked out. Yes security. Having a good security plugin. Securi I found too difficult to understand. Anyway, there are certainly more problems to fix soon.. boy oh boy.

  14. Braham Dutt Sharma says

    Hi, I want change my existing blog authority in another login id example: i make 5 blog with my own id and now i want change 1 blog login and password with another email is , can this possible , if possible please help.

  15. Tyler says

    There is nowhere else it needs to change. Everything is attributed to the ID of the user, not the username. It’s just a text field like email, first_name etc.

    • MattFromGA says

      So you have a certainty that ever plugin and theme written for wordpress follows that guidance? What about plugins that share username with external systems which make data associates with that?

  16. adeem jan says

    Yet another informative tutorial from you

    Let me tell you honestly, I am totally the non-techie so I had NO idea about how to change the admin username till some time back – nor do I visit the C-Panel – I fear those places…lol…

    My friend takes care of the tech aspects, though I’ve learnt it all now and thanks to you all of you tech bloggers sharing your posts here, I keep learning each day!

    Yes, for security reasons, you need to change the usernames, more so with the number of cases of hackers all over the web. Better to be safe than sorry later.

    Thanks for sharing.…. keep up the good work…

  17. Nasir Uddin says

    Thanks. I knew it before. Another process is given by Stijn Vogels. I do that sometimes. But phpmyadmin process is much easier if you have cpanel details.

  18. vaibhav singh says

    Hey,

    Thanks for taking time to write this. I was thinking it is impossible to change….Thanks a lot

  19. hoa sen vang says

    That’s good idea, thanks i think found the right way to change user name any more, which make me crazy time.

  20. getnet asfaw says

    how can i change user name from the hosted website if i can’t access the database of all the users?

    • Vince Comfort says

      You make work easier for hackers. Because when hackers want to access your site, they start with the desired, sitename and initials.

  21. Jitendra Vaswani says

    Thnxxx for this amazing article. I was eager to change my username. finally i got solution.

  22. Dave OSullivan says

    Thanks, worked a treat. Instead of ‘Usernames cannot be changed’ why doesn’t it say ‘Usernames can only be changed in your hosting cPanel’ Thanks fir the tutorial

  23. Richard says

    I have installed probably three wp site recently and my email address is being put in as user id. When I try to change by creating a new admin and delete the old, the system will not complete the action. So now I have two admins in each install.

  24. William Patton says

    wow… how many people don’t update their username on creation? lol

    And changing the record in the database without following the chain of records that the original input created is just… wrong. I wouldn’t be giving anyone this advice without a disclaimer. At least it says the easiest way (it should be the recommended way) is to create a new user and attribute all posts to it then make sure that the old user ID isn’t being called from anywhere, if it is update it.

    • Tyler says

      What is this “chain of records” you speak about? Every post is attributed to the ID of the user, so changing the username is perfectly safe. It’s nothing more than a field like email, first_name, etc. If you don’t know anything about how WordPress or databases work, it’s probably best not to give advice on it.

  25. Lilou says

    I’m French and not English very well. But I wanted to thank you for your help, because I was looking how to change the ID of my WordPress site.

    Thank you again.
    I put your site in my favorites.

    See you soon.

  26. wisekal says

     @Stijn Vogels Changing the username in this manner can also cause other problems. As you mentioned, a person can create a new account, give it admin rights and proceed by deleting the old admin. However, there are in many instances where the admin ID was used for something. When you create a new admin, you create a new ID. By updating the username via “phpMyAdmin” you’re avoiding that being changed.
     
    @kovshenin  This is 100% correct and goes with what I said above. In my opinion the best approach is that which was recommended above in this article. It keeps a lot of the crucial information you may require rather than loosing it when creating a new admin user.
     
    Additionally to all this, you can also download a plugin or two by Website Defender, one being “WP Security Scan” and the other “WP Secure”. These plugins allow for you to seamlessly update your database username and prefix used by your installation without any access required to the databases. Two plugins I strongly recommend for various reasons.
     
    – Bryce Wisekal

    • kovshenin says

       @wisekal  Hi Bryce! Sorry but you’re wrong, messing with the wp_users table directly is in fact insecure, because of the various actions and filters run during functions like wp_insert_user and wp_update_user including cache revalidation, data sanitization and much more. When updating your table directly you’re short-circuiting all those actions and filters, so plugins, themes and core that rely on them will simply fail. An example of such a plugin is any persistent object caching plugin that uses wp_cache_get.

  27. kovshenin says

    Stijn’s right, it’s easier and requires no messy phpMyAdmin routines, to just create a new user and then attribute all posts. However, it’s worth noting that usernames are used in the permalink structure for author archives, like your archives are now on /author/wpbeginner/ and if you changed your username, all those previous links will turn into 404 errors.
     
    ~ Konstantin

    • Stijn Vogels says

       @kovshenin Methinks an archive for /author/kovshenin/ would be more relevant than /author/admin/ which will probably generate a million results… According to Google, about 17,3 million. No argument that your procedure is the most valid, but it should be done from the beginning.

      • kovshenin says

         @Stijn Vogels I’m not saying it’s good or bad, wrong or right, worth the trouble or not. I’m just saying what will happen to your previous author archives, so nobody is surprised :)

    • Editorial Staff says

      Not sure if I understand you correctly Konstantin.. But in my experience, the old URLs stay the same. For example if the URL is /author/wpbeginner/ << it will continue to work. For example if I changed the username to newname... the url /author/newname/ won't work. But that has no impact on anything. As a matter of fact some may even say that this is good for security because now the hackers don't know your username.

      Admin

      • GWW says

        I believe the URLs use the user_nicename field. By default, this is set to the user_login field after being passed through `sanitize_title` (which replaces accented characters, removes HTML and PHP tags). If you update user_login without changing user_nicename, URLs remain unaffected. If you update both fields, URLs will change; any URL using the old nice name will result in a 404.

        • whereskarlo says

          This. What about if you only change the nicename but leave the username intact? I’d rather keep my username and make the urls prettier.

  28. Stijn Vogels says

    Even easier:
    1. Create a new admin profile for yourself, with the name you want.
    2. Delete you old admin profile and transfer all posts to the new account.
    3. Done.

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